Recently in School Bus Category

Source: By Beth Smith, The Suburbanite (OH), New! Fri Jun 05, 2009, 10:02 AM EDT

Members of the Coventry Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) accepted a pay freeze and rolled over their contract. The announcement was made at the school board meeting by Brian Smith, president. OAPSE represents clerical, support staff and bus drivers.  Closely related, a number of citizens attended the meeting expressing concerns about the future of busing and Coventry bus drivers.

.... School Superintendent Rusty Chaboudy has begun an exploration of Petermann LLC  to provide bus transportation for the district's students. Coventry would give up their bus fleet and the cost of its maintenance in favor of buses dispatched from a Petermann terminal on Triplett Blvd.

Source:By Amanda McGregor, Salem News (MA), June 09, 2009

 School bus driver Carmella Cote said she can't count the number of times she has comforted students, or sung to them to calm them down for the ride to and from school.  Other drivers said they always call families if they are running late and try to adhere to a consistent routine, which is important to many children with special needs.

..... The drivers and monitors are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which is set to meet with the school administration on Thursday afternoon for "impact bargaining."  Union members said yesterday that they are ready to make concessions in order to save their jobs.

Source: Mid Hudson News (NY), April 24, 2009

The Port Jervis City School District Board of Education Thursday night approved a $59 million 2009-2010 academic year budget which includes the privatization of student transportation.

...... There are 100 district employees who work in the transportation department and are represented by the CSEA. Some may get picked up by the private company, but they would lose in the end, said union spokeswoman Jessica Ladlee. "It's lower wages, minimum benefits," she said. "Right now, we have workers here who have invested many, many years with the district, but they are not quite at retirement age, so it puts them in a very tough position because they had years in the state retirement system but they are not quite where they need to be in order to receive a full pension."

Source: HometownLife.com (MI), March 27, 2009

Custodial and transportation services for the Bloomfield Hills Schools will not be privatized. Instead, the school board voted unanimously Thursday night to adopt a new five-year contract with AFSCME Local 1628, which covers the district's approximately 178 bus drivers and custodians. The new agreement, which is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009, and runs through Dec. 31, 2013, will save about $2.1 million, according to the district.

It includes changes in health care coverage and a contribution toward health care, wage reductions, holiday and vacation day reductions and overtime changes. Wages are frozen at their new levels for the first three years of the contract, with a wage opener in contract years 2012 and 2013.

Source: Reported by: Jennifer Denman, Ozarks First (MO), Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008 @07:57pm CST

The Springfield School District is in need of management to oversee its school bus system and the district is considering outsourcing the job or jobs.

....... Hosmer says he's not opposed to outsourcing, but worries what this could mean down the road. "You also have to understand these companies are taking part of your business and are doing it on a profit basis. the companies are making money off what they are doing for the district and you have to ask why can't we figure out how to do that in the district," says Hosmer.

Source: By Stephen Sacco, Times Herald-Record (NY), November 18, 2008

PORT JERVIS -- The Port Jervis School District is planning to privatize its transportation system by the end of the school year in 2010. District officials say capital investments weren't made, so they can't run the system properly. Union representative and district bus driver Betty Kranz, however, says the decision is causing distress to people who might lose their jobs. ......

A recent negotiation with the CSEA, the union that represents the bus drivers, allows the district to bid out to a private company a minimum of five bus runs. In exchange, the district has guaranteed that all current transportation department employees, even those on leave, will keep their jobs at least until the 2009-2010 school year, which ends on June 30, 2010. The CSEA contract also ends on June 30, 2010.

Source: By Stephen Sacco, Times Herald-Record (NY), August 30, 2008

The newly elected Board of Education has reopened the option of privatizing the school district's transportation system. The board has gotten bids for an attorney who could advise the district on labor issues that surround privatization.

....... Of concern are the jobs of roughly 250 CSEA union members who work for the district, the majority of them bus drivers, said Betty Kranz, a union representative and district bus driver.

Source: By DEBBIE PALINSKY, Star Beacon (OH), August 25, 2008 11:34 pm

Bus delays and problems Monday morning and afternoon for the Madison Local School District with the private bus company Community Bus Services were called "unacceptable" by many furious parents who made many angry calls to the schools and the transportation department.

......... Michelle Popovich said she was willing to give CBS the benefit of doubt and realized that delays are normal for the first day of school, but found the delays on Monday ridiculous.

........ Madison's school board hired CBS to transport students after negotiations broke down with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees Local 238, representing district bus drivers.

Source: By Kurt Allemeier, Quad City Times (IL), Wednesday, July 9, 2008 9:50 PM CDT

........ The shuttles that fans will take to the TPC Deere Run will be the same buses that area schoolchildren take every day during the school year.

In years past, golf fans rode from satellite parking areas in MetroLink buses. In May, a Federal Transportation Administration ruling that prohibits publicly subsidized transit systems from offering charter services forced the MetroLink board to opt out of the contracted shuttle service to and from the TPC Deere Run.

Source: By DEBBIE PALINSKY, Star Beacon (OH), July 23, 2008 06:40 pm

The Ohio Association of Public School Employees, and several union representatives from across northeast Ohio, rallied Tuesday night across from the Madison Board of Education in support of the 54 bus drivers who lost their jobs as a result of the board's decision to privatize busing.